A Walk Round Lichfield's Historic Parks and Gardens
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Newsletter of the Staffordshire Gardens and Parks Trust. Registered Charity No. 1013862. Company No. 2723974 SUMMER 2019 ISSUE No. 60 News Staffordshire Gardens & Parks Trust LETTER Published by the Staffordshire Gardens and Parks Trust. A walk round Lichfield’s historic parks and gardens In the days leading up to the walk, the country recorded record temperatures, and the fear was that, in the two hours the walk was expected to take, members would be wilting under the heat; in the event, of course, rain fell continuously, and a dozen hardy members and friends proceeded on a shortened tour clad in waterproofs and sheltering under umbrellas! Nonetheless, led by a knowledgeable and entertaining guide like Jonathan Oates, an experienced city guide better known as “Jono”, there was much to learn and enjoy. The tour began in the Museum Gardens, the oldest part of Beacon Park, Lichfield’s premier park, which was first opened to the public in 1859, and visitors, impressed by the immaculate state in which the park is maintained or the colourfulness of its flowerbeds, cannot be blamed for not knowing that this was once marshland, made available for public use when silt was spread over it, taken from Minster Pool, of which it was once part before a causeway divided the lake into two parts. Minster Pool and its neighbour, the larger Stowe Pool, are both man-made, and provided support for two mills, a tannery and a fishery. They once supplied water to the Black Country when they were leased by the South Waterworks Company. Minster Pool was given its serpentine shape, when it was dredged in the 1770s, in imitation of the Serpentine in London following a campaign led by Anna Seward, the celebrated “Swan of Lichfield”. Given to the City and County of Lichfield in 1968, Minster Pool is now the responsibility of Lichfield City Council and Stowe Pool, popular with anglers, that of Lichfield District Council. Statue of Capt. John Smith continued overleaf Former Library The Museum Gardens were given their he had received for the sale of the land), St. Chad’s, as well as the Ryland Library in name because they stood next to the and a proposal to increase the rates by Manchester, before being taken over by Lichfield Free Library and Museum, built a halfpenny to furnish the library with the Linford Group in 1968. on land sold to the city council by John books met with strong resistance from Law, the Diocesan Chancellor, who was those who had no use for it. Sculpted by Kathleen Scott, the widow passionate in his belief that the poor of the Antarctic explorer, Captain Robert should have free access to books. It was The building is now the home of the Scott, and paid for by public subscription, built in 1857 in the Italian style made Lichfield Registry Office, said to be the Captain Smith’s statue was NOT, as some popular by Prince Albert, the Prince most popular in the county, the Library believe, situated in Lichfield following its Consort, who had designed Osborne having moved in 1989, first to the former rejection by Hanley, Smith’s birth place, House in that style. Friary Girls’ School and, in 2018, to the because the town’s authorities were deconsecrated St. Mary’s Church in the embarrassed by his part in the loss of his Lichfield’s Free Library was only the city’s main square. ship; documents show that Lichfield was second to be built in the country chosen because it lies midway between following the passing of the Public Two statues occupy dominant positions London and Liverpool, home to the Libraries Act in 1850, which gave local in the Gardens, the one of Edward VII in headquarters of the company which boroughs the power to establish free coronation robes, holding a sceptre, the owned the vessel. libraries, the first being in Salford, and was other of Captain Smith, captain of the unusual insofar as the popularity of the “Titanic”, on its ill-fated maiden voyage. Furthermore, the inscription on the base style was generally limited to the south of the statue proclaims that, far from of the country and not widely adopted Carved in Portland stone, the king’s being condemned as a pariah, Captain further north. statue, unveiled in 1908, was donated Smith had bequeathed to his countrymen to the city by one of its principal “the memory & example of a great heart, However, what Chancellor Law had benefactors, Robert Bridgeman, to mark brave life and a heroic death”. The statue overlooked was that the poor were not his year as Sheriff of Lichfield. The family was unveiled on July 27th, 1914, by his only impoverished and therefore could business of Robert Bridgeman & Sons, daughter Helen in the presence of a not afford books, but very few were which traded for more than eighty years, number of dignitaries. literate! Consequently, an appeal for was noted for its skill in stone-masonry donations of books met with very limited and woodcarving, working not only on The fountain was another of Chancellor success (even though Chancellor Law set Lichfield’s Cathedral, but on both of Law’s gifts to the city, though the lions a good example by donating the £25 Birmingham’s cathedrals, St. Philip’s and were added later. Garden of Remembrance kings who were slain by the Romans in a held at Darwin’s house or at Soho House, battle fought in 288 AD on the outskirts Matthew Boulton’s Birmingham home. Beacon Park now extends to more than of the city and whose bodies were Our interest was not in the house itself, seventy acres, the result of the generosity dismembered by the victors as a final act now run as a museum, but in the herb of another of Lichfield’s generous of humiliation. garden at the back. Developed in 1999, benefactors, Colonel Michael it is not on the site of Darwin’s original Swinfen-Broun, who wished to see Originally set into the façade of Lichfield’s garden, which was situated on the beautiful gardens in which the citizens of Guildhall, it was moved to the Museum outskirts of the city and was much bigger Lichfield “may be encouraged to enjoy Gardens when the Guildhall was re-built in size, but is designed to illustrate the rest and recreation”. It offers a wide in the nineteenth century, located first full range of herbs used in his time for range of leisure activities for residents in a rockery inside the balustrade at the cooking and other domestic purposes, of all ages, including golf, bowls, football front of the Gardens and finally to its medicine and dyeing. and tennis, as well as wide, well-paved present position in 2010. paths along which to promenade, and a The garden is divided into five sections. In segregated play area equipped with many From here, it was a short walk to the the Culinary Garden may be found herbs attractive features. Erasmus Darwin House, once the home used for flavouring food – thyme, parsley, of the renowned doctor, botanist, writer sage, borage and chives - and aromatic It also accommodates the Peace and poet – and, of course, grandfather herbs used for potpourri to sweeten the Woodland, a newly-planted labyrinth of the better-known Charles, who, sixty house, while in the Apothecary’s Garden made up of 1918 trees to mark the years later, was to develop some of his may be seen St. John’s Wort, whose oil centenary of the Armistice that brought grandfather’s ideas about evolution in his was used to treat wounds, Soapwort, an end to World War One, a Cedar “The Origin of Species”. whose oil was used as a soap, and White of Lebanon, a symbol of hope, its Horehound, used to relieve indigestion. centrepiece. Erasmus Darwin was one of the founder- members of The Lunar Society, a learned Dr. Darwin’s Medicine Chest contains Another piece of unusual masonry is to society-cum-dining-club established in poppies (for opium), foxgloves for be found in the secluded Herbaceous or 1775 and so-called because its monthly heart conditions, valerian for sleeping, Rose Garden. Known as “The Martyrs’ meetings were held when the moon was chamomile (used as an emetic) and Plaque”, it is composed of the remains of full, making travelling easier. Members rhubarb (for “cleansing”), while the Dyer’s a sculpture mounted on a plinth depicting included Josiah Wedgwood, James Watt, Garden contains plants used for colouring the dismembered bodies of the three and Joseph Priestley, and meetings were fabrics, and the plants grown in the Statue of Edward VII Scented Garden were once used to bring belief grew that, if it were to die, the who lost their lives in both the First fragrant aromas to the house. Cathedral would fall into ruin. However, World War and, added later, the Second. it was removed three years ago and the It is also home to the only Verdun Oak in From here, we went a short distance Cathedral still stands, making one wonder Staffordshire, albeit second generation. Its round the corner to the secluded Vicars where these superstitions come from! picturesque setting, overlooking Minster Close. Approached through a narrow Pool, has led to its being described as one and enclosed passageway, it has a range Well-stocked flower beds run along the of the most beautiful in the country. of half-timbered houses built between side of the houses, adding colour to the 1315 and 1500 around three sides of a tranquillity of the Close.